http://bit.ly/n9VKA6
"For the record, I fully support gay rights. I also fully support free speech. That means anything this side of incitement to violence. I believe the current law is dreadful, because even the wisest people find it tough to draw the line between speech that's merely offensive and speech that's downright hateful. And in my limited experience, even human-rights bureaucrats aren't always the wisest people. In any case, that line will always be hopelessly subjective."
3 comments:
I can agree with you to a certain extent, but I think the real test to free speech vs hate would be to take some of this "literature" that Whatcott and other various religious groups distribute, and substitute other people and see how it stands up. I always get the feeling that religious objection to homosexuality is held to a different standard. If for example, we targeted obese, conservative, religious white males with the same fervor, would that be hate or free speech? Just sayin'.
bcwaterboy...
Many of the objections I read to unfettered free speech can be reduced to sheer laziness. Another Liberal blogger says she just shouldn't have to be exposed to opinions she finds distasteful and she certainly shouldn't have to exercise her mind to argue against them. Well boo hoo.
If you don't like someone's opinions you can ignore them or you fight them but using the power of the state to suppress them is completely wrong. BCwaterboy tries to turn the tables and say what if... and I say so what? That's exactly the point! What if we decide that YOUR opinions are hateful and wrong and we decide to use the state to suppress your opinions? That's the problem with free speech only for speech you agree with.
Hi Rat, I can see where you're coming from but I think you've missed my point. Personally, I do ignore stuff that I find offensive but for the most part, live and let live. But people like Whatcott are knowingly pushing the line of acceptable social standards in my view. In my opinion he can say what he wants, but time and again we know that hostile opinions like that do have a negative effect on others. This type of stuff feeds bullying behaviour, something we've tolerated far too long. What I'm stating in my argument is that if we determine that the content of the material that Whatcott distributes is acceptable because of his right to free speech, if another group were to be the target, would that be held to the same standards or would we consider it hate? What I was pointing out was that those who consider themselves the "majority" in society, ie the white heterosexual male, were subjected to constant objection, religious bigotry, family shunning, harassment, fliers, whatever, would they too consider it acceptable coming back at them. I'm not entirely convinced that they would.
bcwaterboy
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